Every small business needs a blog. Why? Here are 6 reasons.
1 – It levels the playing field
Online marketing, and marketing in general, isn’t always fair on the little boys. With their huge budgets and extensive brand awareness, it’s significantly easier for big companies to make a splash with their campaigns and tougher if you’re a small company that wants to challenge established brands.
However, blogging offers a valid way to compete against bigger clients with heftier finances. All you need is the ideas, the research and a little panache with the written word and you can bring thousands of interested, relevant customers to your site.
2 – It will earn you links
Ranking well in Google, Yahoo and other search providers is all about securing links to your website. Effectively, the search engines view links as a seal of approval – and the more relevant and authoritative the site that links to you, the better
Links shouldn’t be bought, they should be earned. By writing, interesting innovative content that speaks to your target audience, it’s only natural that other websites will discuss what you’re talking about and link to your site – thus increasing your traffic and making your site more authoritative in the search engines’ eyes.
3 – It will boost your social media presence
Do you run social media channels? They’ll be greatly boosted by the presence of a blog. If you’re churning out hot content on a regular basis and publishing it on your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn profiles then people will notice your brand and start communicating – while also recommending your blog to their connections,
4 – It allows you to solve customers’ problems
Every potential customer, whether they’re aware of your brand or not, has their own specific problems. And many won’t purchase things unless their issues are resolved.
Using your blog is a perfect way for you to address many of the issues that customers have in your industry. Maybe they’re confused by common jargon. Perhaps they want to know how to get the best value from a product or justify their decision to someone else. Either way, a blog can help you to help your customers.
And once you’ve been of assistance and helped them to make a better buying decision, they’ll see your brand as a valuable resource – and will be more likely to think of you when purchasing in the future.
5 – It taps into what people are thinking
Sometimes, without spending big on market research, it’s hard for a small business to find out what your customers are thinking and looking for. Creating a content strategy for your blog will help you to see what questions people are asking online and allow you to adapt yourself to suit them.
Doing a little research into what people are searching can give you some great content ideas. Play around with Google’s Keyword Tool or even put some key search terms into Google and see what its ‘autosuggest’ feature show what others are searching. You’ll be surprised at the lucrative, potentially uncompetitive concepts that people are looking for online.
6 – It’s good for PR
Great PR is all about great communication. If you’re a business that’s keen to communicate frequently with your target market and speak to them in a way that helps them out, using a blog is the perfect way to do that. As a result, your brand will appear more approachable and more relevant. It’s pretty simple really.
Sponsored Post – Crack content creators at Liberty Marketing specialise in generating innovative, interesting blogs for companies of all shapes and sizes in a range of different industries. Find out more about Liberty by visiting its blog online today.